Title: God’s Dream for the Victims and Oppressors of
America
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
I chose to identify with the
underprivileged. I chose to identify
with the poor. I chose to give my life
for the hungry. I chose to give my life
for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. I choose to live for and with those who find
themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going
that way. If it means dying for them,
I’m going that way, because I heard a voice saying, “Do something for others.”
(Vincent Harding, Martin Luther King:
The Inconvenient Hero; Orbis Books,
Maryknoll, New York 1996, p. 93. )
Tonight I want to, first give a tribute to
Dr. King, to thank him for the gifts he has given to my life and journey as a
white southern male. Second I want us to
ask, “Where is injustice in the land today?”
Third we need to consider if it is not time for another poor people’s
direct action campaign in this country.
Finally, we need to celebrate the fact that we don’t come to Dr. Kings
Birthday Celebration in despair, because the God of Justice is sovereign
yesterday, today and forever.
Move
1. A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr.
I want to begin my remarks this evening by
giving a specific tribute of deep
personal gratitude to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the gifts he gave
to me as a white southern male. The
first expression of gratitude in my tribute to Dr. King comes from the gift he
gave me in his Letter from the Birmingham
City Jail. In that letter he taught
me that the heart of the Christian Gospel is the work of justice, the work of
freedom, the work of uplifting human dignity for all people, especially the
poor and oppressed.
I was in seminary at Candler School of
Theology when I read Martin Luther King Jr.’s
Letter from the Birmingham City
Jail. I was from Birmingham and was
asleep, I could say dead, in my
comfortable acceptance of the open
hostility to Dr. King’s work in Birmingham for racial and economic
justice. Dr. King woke me up to see
that the meaning of Christian discipleship is at the heart of the African
American struggle for freedom, justice and equality. I cried for several days after my encounter
with his letter to me discharging the pain of my oppression as a white southern
male. I continue to weep because of the
entrenched racial and economic injustice in this country.
John Wesley had taught me the wonderful
truth that God loved me as a sinner.
That truth freed me to have the courage to wake up to the current social
reality of injustice; and to wake up to
the truth that God was working in the life and ministry of Martin Luther King,
Jr. Since those days I have often
referred to myself as a recovering racist.
There are some problems with the designation of recovering racist. In America recovery is an inadequate metaphor
for dealing with racism because if you are recovering you can not use the drugs
any more. ? As a white male I still benefit from white male privilege whether I
want to or not, because the dominant
value of our society is still white male supremacy.
I want to thank Dr. King for waking me
up. I thank you, Dr. King for the
freedom to see and freedom to discharge the pain of my oppression. For today I can say that I love myself
completely and with our reservation as a white southern male and I am committed
to that day when every person in America can experience that love for
themselves and all people. I am
committed to see the love of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reflected in all the
social structures of our society. This
love is God’s dream for the victims and oppressors of America, the dream Dr.
Martin Luther King lived and died to proclaim in this land.
The second expression of gratitude I want
to include in my tribute to Dr. King is to thank him for the gift of “beloved
community.” I did not have the privilege
of knowing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. personally but over the last several
years in Birmingham I have had the wonderful gift of sharing in the “beloved
community.” A community that is the God given fruit of King’s leadership of the
nonviolent movement for racial and economic justice in Birmingham. That gift of “beloved community” has been one
of the greatest gifts of my life. There
are many problems in Birmingham today, as there are all across this land, but
as Dr. Abraham Lincoln Woods, Jr., president of SCLC in Birmingham says,
“Birmingham is not all that it should be, but it is a better ham than it used
to be.” I want you to know that the
“beloved community” is alive there. I
rejoice to have the privilege of fellowship in that community. Thank you Dr. King for the gift of “beloved
community.” Dr. King taught us the keys
to “beloved community.” He said, “Fear
leads to hate, and hate leads to violence but
nonviolent resistance in the spirit of love leads to God’s dream for the
victims and oppressors of America which is “beloved community.”
I thank God for Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. for he helped me see and let me know
that I could be a part of the “beloved community” that is God’s dream for
America. Dr. King did not exclude me as
a white southern male. He invited me to
the revolution of life for all. I accepted the invitation to God’s dream for
the victims and oppressors of America.
As we celebrate Dr. King’s
Birthday, God is still calling all of us
today through his ministry and the celebration of his birthday to leave the
American nightmare of greed, racism, materialism, militarism and hate and join
the revolution for the values of freedom, justice, and jobs for all. These values of love embodied in nonviolent resistance are
central to God’s dream for victims and oppressors of America; values that build “beloved community”
Move
2. Where is injustice in the land
today? Welfare Reform.
We must follow Martin Luther King,
Jr.’s commitment as a holy watcher for justice and ask: How is it with the poor today? Who is left out today? For God’s love for all never ends and it is
still true that, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” We need the pain that truth often brings and
the hope that only the non-violent struggle for justice can bring. We must help one another to wake up to
injustice and to stay awake!
We must not sleep through the ongoing
revolution for justice and slumber in
our silent acceptance of the pain of any who are oppressed.
It has been interesting to watch the
progression of the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday over the decades since his
death. We have moved the celebration
from the nonviolent struggle in the streets to the security of the
stained-glass windows. Often we are
content with pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities rather than
joining in the continued mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and
economic injustice that is still rampant in the land. We are in danger of burying Dr. King’s active
commitment to justice by honoring him with our words of celebration devoid of
actions in community with the poor.
How is it with the poor in Kansas? In Alabama the poverty rate is 18% for the
total population and 25% for children.
In Greene County Alabama 46% of the people live in poverty. 58% of the children live in poverty in that
county. We could spend the next several
hours talking about the increasing state of poverty and homelessness in
America. We don’t have the time to do
that but most of us are, or should be, familiar with something of the current
state of poverty in America. If we are
not, we must become familiar with poverty, not just in the literature about the
poor, but through personal relationships
with our brothers and sisters in poverty.
We need to step forward on his birthday and say what would Martin King
the holy watcher for justice have to say about the current state of poverty in
America.
One of the first things he would be
asking, is the Welfare Reform Law passed
by the 1996 Congress and signed by the
President of the United States an unjust law and does a nonviolent poor peoples
campaign need to be initiated to challenge it?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say that
the New Welfare Reform Law is an unjust Law on the same basis that he declared
the segregation laws of Birmingham, Alabama unjust 34 years ago. He defined the terms of an unjust law
through the thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas, “An unjust law is a human law that
is not rooted in eternal and natural law. Any law that uplifts human
personality is just. Any law that
degrades human personality is unjust.” (Testament Of Hope, p. 293) The New Welfare Reform Law says that we will
only treat you as human being for two years at a time with out a job and a
total of five years in your life with out a job. Any law that declares that a
person is human being and a economic citizen of this country only as long as
that person has a job degrades human personality. After that time you are
expendable, according to the law, undeserving of the mercy of this
country. Any law that declares any human
being expendable based on economic status, or any other status, is an unjust a
law. As a law that declares a person
expendable because of the color of their skin is unjust. Dr. Martin Luther King would be asking, “Is
the new welfare reform law unjust?”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. also analyzed
laws in terms of the thinking of the
Jewish philosopher Martin Buber (TOH p.
293). He would say the New Warfare
Reform Law substitutes an “I-it” relationship for the “I-thou”
relationship. The New Welfare Reform Law
ends up relegating persons to the status of economic objects, things. People are classified like machines, of no
value, unless they are working. Throw
them away if they are broken or out dated.
Or like cattle, shock them with the sting of law to force them to work
regardless of their mental or physical health, educational opportunities,
availability of child care or transportation to the jobs.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would address
the welfare reform law in terms used by Paul Tillich (TOH p. 294) who said that
sin is separation. To separate or
segregate humanity in America into those who are considered human by whether
they have a job or not, is as unjust a separating or segregating humanity based
on the color of your skin. A human being
is a human being. A person is a person. God created us all for “beloved community.”
Martin King would give us one more concrete
example of unjust laws by pointing out that there is no economic democracy in
America only economic totalitarianism. A
totalitarianism that controls the vast majority of our country’s budget from
the powerful corporations and the Pentagon. Military expenditures are not even
on the legislative table. The people who
are poor and without jobs have no way to participate in the determination of
their economic future. They are totally
at the mercy of others who are non-poor.
They see life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign. This is not a just arrangement, but a clear
denial of economic democracy.
A young, homeless, black man that is a
member of the church I pastor told me last week, “Preacher we have grown past waking up and
saying good morning. We don’t even speak
to one another any more. We are living
on the edge, like in a concentration camp, living only for self, not caring for
one another. “We need jobs,” he said,
“but before we need jobs we need respect.”
How are things with the poor? They are bad and getting worse. Is it time for major, direct, nonviolent
action to correct the situation not only for the poor who are victims of America
in our own land, but for the poor
through out the world?
I can hear Martin Luther King, Jr. the Holy Watcher saying, “Therefore O
leaders, may my council be acceptable to you:
atone for your sins with righteousness, and for your iniquities with
mercy for the oppressed, so that your posterity may be prolonged.” (Daniel 4: 27)
There are other struggles for justice
beside the presence of a New Welfare Reform Law that Dr. King would
question. Current reversals in the gains
of affirmation action are under way that Dr. King would also question.
Move
3. Where is injustice in the land today?
What about Affirmative Action.
So, we must also ask, who else is being
left out today, and why?
A little history will help us here. To refer
my good friend Dr. Karnie Smith’s
unpublished Doctor of Ministry Project from Union Theological Seminary in
Daton, Ohio; (p. 50-51) Dr. Smith is
pastor of the St. John AME Church in Birmingham,
He
points out that in the years following the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
there was promise and expectation as a result of the Freedman’s Bureau
Act. The Bureau served a supportive role
to black schools and social agencies.
Furthermore, the Bureau attempted to correct the atrocities of slavery
by institutionalizing a “Land Distribution
Program” for exslaves. This was not an
unusual law because standard land practice in settling the states was to give
land if you were white. The program was
designed for the Freedman’s Bureau to acquire 40 acre plots from Confederate
States and make the land available to African-Americans. Thus land ownership would allow African
-Americans to become economically stable and self-sufficient. Unfortunately, the “Land Redistribution
Program” did not last long. In 1865, the U.S. Congress decided to put an
end to the “Land Redistribution Program” and reclaim the land that had already
been given to some African-Americans.
The reclamation of the land and the failure of the Freedman’s Bureau in
1874 created an atmosphere of hopelessness and despair in the African American
community. Lerone Bennett, Jr. in his
book: Before the Mayflower: A History of Black America, articulates the
sadness and pain in the African American community as General O. O. Howard attempted to tell blacks in South
Carolina that they must give back the land,
Bennett writes:
“He tried to say it, but the words wouldn’t
come. How do you tell a people that they
have been taken again? To cover his
confusion and shame, General Howard asked the people to sing a song. One old woman on the edge of the crowd was
up to the occasion. She opened her mouth
and out came the words tinged with insufferable sadness: “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen.” Howard, a gentle, one armed humanitarian,
broke down and wept. There were tears,
there were rivers of tears, but there were no mules and precious little
land. Without land, tools, without
capital or assess to credit facilities, the freedmen drifted into a form of
peonage: the share cropping
system.”
In the 1860’s there was a move from forty
acres and a mule to sharecropping. An
amazing reversal from justice to deny blacks land when whites received 200
acres or more when the state was settled.
Today in the 1990’s Martin Luther King, Jr. would point out the same
reversal taking place in a more subtle form.
The years following the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s were filled
with hope and expectation because of affirmative action. Now we have moved from affirmative action to
privatization, outsourcing and temporary labor.
Affirmative action gave minorities and women access to jobs in corporate
America. Now new definitions of exclusion
are working through the practices of downsizing, out sourcing, and temporary labor. These business practices of the 1990’s
exclude the participation of a whole new community of people from employee
benefits such as stock ownership, retirement plans, family health care,
vacations, sick leave and other benefits of wealth. People whose labor is purchased through a
contractor are very often denied these benefits. Exclusion from the benefits of wealth under
the old social construction of race accomplished by reversing the Land
Redistribution Program of the 1860’s is now taking place afresh through the
business practice of hiring temporary labor.
Under slavery and Jim Crow segregation, the denial of land was used to
keep black folks from gaining any property,
assets or benefits of white wealth.
Today the blocking of people from the benefits of wealth is at work in privatization, downsizing, temporary labor and outsourcing to keep the
new excluded from inheriting any benefits of wealth or having any power in the
decision making process. Martin Luther
King, Jr. would be asking, what is
behind this new definition of exclusion? Is it because affirmative action gave
blacks and others a new line of access to the benefits of wealth? Is the same process going on here that took
place in 1865 with the reversal of the Land Distribution Program? Are these new constructs of exclusion the
new reversal, new ways of leaving people out in the 90’s?
The way this works out for the working poor
members of the church I serve is as follows:
They work for the temporary labor organizations in downtown
Birmingham. They are paid minimum
wage. They are deducted for transportation
each way back and forth to the job. They
are deducted for a lunch plus a service charge.
They are deducted for the rental of safety equipment. They end up taking home around $25 a
day. This is not enough income to become
and stay established in an apartment and provide personal transportation. Public transportation is becoming more
limited with the passing of each month and year and is inadequate to support
transportation to work in most cases.
They have no paid vacation, no sick leave, no paid holidays. This is extremely difficult around holidays
like Christmas and New Years. They miss
at least four days work and pay in two weeks because of the holidays.
They are also required to sign an agreement
that they will not work for the company they are contracted to for 90
days. Some are then hired by the
company. After that period they get an
increase of pay and can make it into some form housing. Often doubling up with a friend or family
member and sharing expenses, struggling with transportation. Many are then laid off before their 30 day
trial period is up and never qualify for any benefits. They end up back on the streets. I have known some men to go through this
process 3 or 4 times over the last 3 years.
They are to be complimented for their courage and faith. They work at hard labor and often in
hazardous conditions. These conditions
are the basis of my friends earlier reflections on the need for respect. Dr. King would have us ask who is left out? And call us to wake up to economic injustice
in the land.
Move
4. The Nonviolent Direct Action
Campaign: Join the Struggle for Justice
and Human Dignity.
So, how do we sing happy birthday to Dr.
King when these reversals of access to justice are rampant in our land? How do we sing happy birthday and use it to
wake ourselves up to Dr. King’s God-given vision of a just world and a just
America? We need a new nonviolent direct
action campaign for the poor. We must
join in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s expression
of God’s dream for the victims of
America. We must know the trouble the
poor in this land and in the world are seeing today. We must
join with Dr., King and sing:
I
choose to identify with the underprivileged.
I choose to identify with the poor.
I chose to give my life for the hungry.
I chose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight
of opportunity. I choose to live for and
with those who find themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with
no exit sign. This is the way I’m going. If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going
that way. If it means dying for them,
I’m going that way, because I heard a voice saying, “Do something for others.”
(Vincent Harding, Martin Luther King:
The Inconvenient Hero; Orbis Books,
Maryknoll, New York 1996, p. 93. )
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the holy watcher for justice is calling us once again three decades following
hid death to the four basic steps of a nonviolent campaign. He points them out
in his Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (TOH p. 290):
(1)
Collect the facts to determine if injustices are alive. Ask the question about jobs. In Greene County, Alabama there are 900
people looking for the 90 job opening in that county. The 226 people in that county who are now on
welfare are not expendable. They cannot be written off. Where are the jobs the poor are to
work? What about pay and benefits? What is a living wage? Who is working for what money? What about job training? What about quality public education for the
poor? What about public
transportation? How do you get to the
jobs? The Civil Rights movement in
Alabama was about Black people riding on the front of the bus, now there are no
buses to ride to the places of economic vitality. The bus service is radically deminished. What about health care? What about affordable housing? The questions go on and on. Where is economic justice for the poor in
this country? Let’s collect the
facts. We must do compassionate critical
analysis. We must walk with the poor in
this land today to understand their pain not to condemn them.
And then (2) Let’s negotiate with Newt Gingrich and Bill
Clinton to quit acting like it is a sin to be poor. We must stop this philosophy that punishment
of the poor will solve their problems.
This philosophy only helps the rich get richer. It does not solve problems. We must pass legislation that enables the poor
to establish the relationships they need to raise their families in the warm
home of a just economy. We need job
training, we need transportation , we need housing, we need jobs that pay a
living wage. We need respect and dignity
for the human beings that are poor. It
is not a sin to be poor brothers and sisters.
Poverty is the clear Biblical sign of an unjust economy.
If Bill and Newt won’t negotiate we must
(3) Purify ourselves in our faith communities.
We must pause and deeply reflect on what the Torah and the Gospel and
the Koran say about God’s concern for the poor.
We must let the Sermon on the Mount fill our souls and break our hearts
of stone. We must have workshops on
nonviolence until we can accept blows without retaliating.
And then if necessary for justice for the
poor we must (4) move into direct action that will create a crises and
establish such a creative tension that our nation will be moved confront the
issue of economic justice and act for
the poor of the land. I think
that Dr. King would be saying that it is time to resurrect the poor peoples
movement and march on Washington one more time.
Celebration: The God of Justice is Sovereign
Brothers and sisters we don’t raise these
questions in despair or without hope for:
All of God’s works are truth, and all God’s
ways are justice. God is able to bring
low those who walk in pride. God is able
to lift up the poor and downtrodden to walk in freedom and wholeness ( Daniel
4: 37).
King
said in 1967 “For years I labored with the Idea of reforming the existing
institutions of the society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I
feel quite differently. I think you’ve
got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values.”
(Vincent Harding, Martin Luther King:
The Inconvenient Hero; Orbis Books,
Maryknoll, New York 1996, p. 103. )
He
went on to add: “We have moved to the era of civil rights to the era of human
rights.” (Vincent Harding, Martin
Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero; Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 1996,
p. 104. )
God is sovereign and God is able to bring
about the reconstruction of the entire society and a revolution of values. For all of God’s works are truth and all
God’s ways are justice. God is able, to
bring low those who walk in pride. God
is able, to lift up the poor and downtrodden, God is able for the poor and
downtrodden to walk in freedom and wholeness in the fullness of their human
dignity.
Brothers and sisters, we do not come to
this Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday celebration in despair. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his
article The Power of Nonviolence (TOH p. 14.); “There is something in the universe that
unfolds for justice.... And this was one
thing that kept the people together, the belief that the universe is on the
side of justice.... We must keep moving
with wise restraint and love and with proper discipline and dignity.”
“On the night of his assassination, with a
sense of what might be very close to him, (King) could still call others. .
. to the great uncharted path. In the big church in Memphis, speaking to
thousands of black people who had gathered together on a very rainy, stormy
night, King spoke these words of encouragement.
Let us rise up tonight with a greater
readiness than ever before. Let us stand
with a greater determination than ever before and let us move on in these
powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to
be. We have the opportunity to make
America a better nation and I want to thank you and I want to thank God for
allowing me to be here with you.
We’ve
got some difficult days ahead ( King said)
but it doesn’t matter with me now.
Because I have been to the mountian top.
And I don’t mind. Like any body
I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place. But I am
not concerned about that now. I just
want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed
me to go up to the mountian and I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the promised
land. I may not get there with you but I
want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. And I an happy tonight. I’m not worried about any thing. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming
of the Lord.” (Vincent Harding, Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero; Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York 1996,
p. 126-127. )
Last Wednesday evening, January 15, 1997, we stood in ‘beloved
community” in 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama and sang, Mine
Eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. We ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around,
turn us around! Were gonna keep on
walking, keep on talking, marching up to freedom land.
R. Lawton Higgs, Sr.
Pastor
Church of the Reconciler
Birmingham, Alabama
1/20/97
Topeka, Kansas